Carlsen Beats Nakamura, Moves to Second Place at Tal Memorial

Anything is possible at the Tal Memorial where Boris Gelfand is still the leader after today's penultimate round, but with the smallest possible margin. The new runner-up is Magnus Carlsen, who defeated Hikaru Nakamura in a topsy-turvy game. In another very exciting encounter Fabiano Caruana profited from a blunder by Alexander Morozevich to reach a "plus one" score.

The games between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura are always exciting for the simple fact that both are great fighters. However, the score is much in the Norwegian's favour: including today's win, he has +6 =13 -0 against the American. At the press conerence he explained this domination as follows:

"In general I do quite well against a player of similar style, since I'm usually happy to play the kind of fighting games that he likes."

Today's game almost became a complete walk-over for Carlsen after Nakamura erred in the opening. His 13...e5 was bad ("a very poor move" - Carlsen) and this was clearly demonstrated in the game. White's beautiful knight on c4, the passed d-pawn and the active move 17.f4 introduced all kinds of tactics, and Black had nothing better than to allow a rolling pawn centre.

But, Nakamura's fighting spirit is certainly not less when he has to defend, on the contrary. He kept on playing decent moves, even when he was with his back against the wall, waiting for the final blow. Then, suddenly Carlsen started to play "too casual" (as he put it himself) and Nakamura grabbed his chance to get back into the (end)game. There White soon got a decisive advantage anyway.

Hikaru Nakamura lost two games in a row

Magnus Carlsen moved to second place

Nakamura is now back to "plus one" (4.5/8), and so is Fabiano Caruana. The Italian, who defeated Alexander Morozevich, seems to have cemented his number three position in the world rankings for the July list, and can even reach 2800 if he also beats Andreikin tomorrow!

Today Caruana was a bit lucky. In a Scotch Four Knights ending he came under huge pressure when the ever-original Alexander Morozevich suddenly started moving a knight, bishop and rook towards his opponent's king. At the press conference Caruana gave some long and deep variations, which he had all seen during the game, and then duly said:

"I don't think my calculation is very good, but at the board you have no choice and you just have to calculate as much as you can."

The game was decided in mutual time trouble, when Morozevich played the inexplicable 38.g5. Caruana:

The tournament leader's strategy on Saturday seemed to be "safety first". In a Ragozin, Boris Gelfand went for a slightly better ending against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, whose plan of an early ...Bd7 and ...Rc8 made a good impression. The Azerbaijani completed his development and after both players had doubled their rooks, they started repeating the moves.

Boris Gelfand vs. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov

Except for one game, in which Viswanathan Anand beat Vladimir Kramnik in a Petroff (Wijk aan Zee 2010), all classical games between these players have ended in draws since their World Championship match in 2008. A twelfth draw was added today, with the Indian keeping a slight advantage from the start - a Nimzo-Indian. Especially on move 13 Anand had several options; he went for an ending where White could hope for a good knight versus bad bishop advantage. However, this would only be serious if the knight could get to e5, as the World Champion explained afterwards.

Anand and Kramnik going through their game...

...in front of a big audience

Dmitry Andreikin and Sergey Karjakin played an old line from the Open Catalan which is considered to be a bit passive for Black, but in this game Black equalized surprisingly easily.

Many scenarios are possible for tomorrow's round, which starts two hours earlier. Gelfand and Carlsen play with black against Kramnik and Mamedyarov respectively. Here's a GM tweet:

I have this nagging feeling that Magnus is going to win the Tal Memorial. Even an out of form Kramnik with Black is tough for Boris.

Commenti

This tournament is one of the greatest mind blowing exercise among the world titled players but hard to finalise the name of one to be the forthcoming champion even the world champion.........but general census may incline towards the youngest Norwagian the Carsen magnus.........sherryshaariff

Will Gelfand just draw Kramnik? He could or he could try and win. If he win he wins. If he draws and Carlsen wins it would be a tie and Carlsen would have four wins to Gelfands three. would he take this chance?

it is a great mix....at the onset every player had a shot....and could have won it if he came into top form....just what a sporting event is all about ... and because chess is even better in replay years of study for aficionados ...the book of this tournament should be a classic and could well be wonderfully written by the 4 Russian comentators ...and I hope they do it.

Gelfand will take a quick draw for sure, and Kramnik will not mind this. So it's down to if Carlsen can beat Mamedyarov. Carlsen's play in this tournament has been not up to his usual level, it seems like he is being distracted by something else. Mamedyarov has played a good tournament so far.

I hope Boris can win outright, it will do his confidence the world of good!

Another great tournament and in truth, would dearly love to see Gelfand win the Tal.....the man has been nothing short of inspirational over the last 6 months and is'nt he arriving at 45 just about now.

@albatrosses I wouldn't go the extent of saying Naka will never become WC. He is a very exciting ambitious player. But Carlsen does seems to whoop him whenever they play much like how Kasparov used to beat Shirov!

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